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Muffin top, spare tyre, blubber, belly fat, beer belly - a multitude of names but they all mean the same thing. Abdominal fat. And in the summer many turn to quick fixes to get rid of it, writes Saleyha Ahsan. The problem with belly - or abdominal - fat isn't just the way it looks on the beach.

Many people want to eat more healthily but find it difficult to change their diet. So what happened when Michael Mosley altered not what he ate, but when he ate? We've known for some time that altering the time at which you eat can affect your weight and metabolism. At least if you are a mouse.

These days it is hard to walk the streets without running into someone who is anxiously looking at their wrist to see if they are on target to reach the magic 10,000 steps. Is it really a goal worth striving for, or might there be something better?

Eating loads of fruit and vegetables - 10 portions a day - may give us longer lives, say researchers. The study, by Imperial College London, calculated such eating habits could prevent 7.8 million premature deaths each year.

The workplace is where people go to work. But much of the day is increasingly padded out with less productive activities, writes Peter Fleming. The case was unnerving for one reason mainly. People die all the time, but usually we notice.

When it comes to creating a great work of art, practice makes perfect, writes Matthew Syed. A design college in the United States has just started a new exhibition about creativity, which will run till January. It is called "Permission to Fail".

A number of recent books have lauded the connection between walking - just for its own sake - and thinking. But are people losing their love of the purposeless walk? Walking is a luxury in the West. Very few people, particularly in cities, are obliged to do much of it at all.

Adolescence now lasts from the ages of 10 to 24, although it used to be thought to end at 19, scientists say. Young people continuing their education for longer, as well as delayed marriage and parenthood, has pushed back popular perceptions of when adulthood begins.

We often worry about lying awake in the middle of the night - but it could be good for you. A growing body of evidence from both science and history suggests that the eight-hour sleep may be unnatural.

What really happens when we make and store memories has been unravelled in a discovery that surprised even the scientists who made it. The US and Japanese team found that the brain "doubles up" by simultaneously making two memories of events.

Lorry driver Abu Fawzi thought it was going to be just another job. He drives an 18-wheeler across some of the most dangerous territory in northern Syria. Bombed-out bridges, deep desert sand, even government forces and so-called Islamic State fighters don’t stand in the way of a delivery.

A newly-discovered photo suggests legendary US pilot Amelia Earhart might have died in Japanese custody - and not in a plane crash in the Pacific. If true, it would solve one of aviation history's biggest mysteries.

To write this article, I drank a beverage containing an effective cognitive enhancer - something that helps me - almost daily - to focus. In my pocket, I carry an extension of my memory, on which I made notes for this very story.

When it comes to height, Dutch men and Latvian women tower over all other nationalities, a study reveals. The average Dutchman is now 183cm (6ft) tall, while the average Latvian woman reaches 170cm (5ft 7in).

How much rest do we think we need, who is getting the most, and what are the most restful activities? The results of the world's largest survey on rest indicate that to feel truly rested, a lot of us want to be alone.

The huge diversity of frogs we see today is mainly a consequence of the asteroid strike that killed off the dinosaurs, a study suggests. It would appear to contradict earlier evidence suggesting a much more ancient origin for many key frog groups.

For 75 years, Finland's expectant mothers have been given a box by the state. It's like a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys that can even be used as a bed. And some say it helped Finland achieve one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates.

Facebook's collection of data makes it one of the most influential organisations in the world. Share Lab wanted to look "under the bonnet" at the tech giant's algorithms and connections to better understand the social structure and power relations within the company.

The average Briton gets six-and-a-half hours' sleep a night, according to the Sleep Council. Michael Mosley took part in an unusual experiment to see if this is enough. It has been known for some time that the amount of sleep people get has, on average, declined over the years.

News that a collection of previously unpublished stories by the author F Scott Fitzgerald will be released next year has got fans excited. Why haven't they been published before, and what are they like?

It's not very often we get to talk about a revolution in understanding and treating depression and yet now doctors are talking about "one of the strongest discoveries in psychiatry for the last 20 years". It is based around the idea that some people are being betrayed by their fiercest protector.

Using money to free-up time is linked to increased happiness, a study says. In an experiment, individuals reported greater happiness if they used £30 ($40) to save time - such as by paying for chores to be done - rather than spending the money on material goods.

The lava rolls down from the jagged, snowcapped mountain ridge and across the Reykjanes peninsula, swamping the land like a petrified ocean – a swell of charcoal, grey and brown, flecked with a sickly mossy green.

It's the summer of 2000 in a resort on the south coast of England, and a well-dressed Chinese woman in her early 40s is trying to buy a balloon. Not a party balloon for the kids - a giant helium balloon like the one right in front of her, carrying holidaymakers 400ft up into the air.

But these stories never seem to add up to a bigger picture. They are isolated events . And our reaction is always the same - shock and horror, and then it all subsides and we are ready to be shocked and horrified when the next scandal comes along.

An overuse of mobile phones by parents disrupts family life, according to a survey of secondary pupils. More than a third of 2,000 11 to 18-year-olds who responded to a poll said they had asked their parents to stop checking their devices.

Here is an easy-to-understand guide to Brexit - beginning with the basics, then a look at the negotiations, followed by a selection of answers to questions we've been sent. The UK has voted to leave the European Union. It is scheduled to depart at 11pm UK time on Friday 29 March, 2019.

Many of the changes in my body when I took part in the clinical trial of an intermittent fasting diet were no surprise. Eating very little for five days each month, I lost weight, and I felt hungry. I also felt more alert a lot of the time, though I tired easily.

The brain uses sleep to wash away the waste toxins built up during a hard day's thinking, researchers have shown. The US team believe the "waste removal system" is one of the fundamental reasons for sleep.

A run of poor sleep can have a potentially profound effect on the internal workings of the human body, say UK researchers.The activity of hundreds of genes was altered when people's sleep was cut to less than six hours a day for a week.

The pancreas can be triggered to regenerate itself through a type of fasting diet, say US researchers. Restoring the function of the organ - which helps control blood sugar levels - reversed symptoms of diabetes in animal experiments.

The new BBC mobile Homepage is a flexible ‘taster menu’ of the BBC's website. I’ve been leading the development of the new Homepage and in this post I explain some of the technical design decisions made during the initial phase of the project.

The Billy bookcase is perhaps the archetypal Ikea product. It was dreamed up in 1978 by an Ikea designer called Gillis Lundgren who sketched it on the back of a napkin, worried that he would forget it.

Richard Branson left school at the age of 16 and set up Student Magazine with one of his friends. He went on to start Virgin Records in the 1970s and is the founder of the Virgin Group. In the 1980s he formed Virgin Atlantic airline and the 1990s saw the arrival of Virgin Mobile and Virgin Trains.

In the novel Catch-22, the author Joseph Heller famously wrote: "Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."He'd taken a quote by Shakespeare on greatness and turned it on its head.

Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland's former deputy first minister, has died aged 66. It is understood he had been suffering from a rare heart condition. His funeral will be in Derry on Thursday.

Can we make ourselves happier? According to studies from all over the globe collated by the World Happiness Database in Rotterdam, we can. But the path to happiness may not be where we are looking for it.

Behaviour can be affected by events in previous generations which have been passed on through a form of genetic memory, animal studies suggest. Experiments showed that a traumatic event could affect the DNA in sperm and alter the brains and behaviour of subsequent generations.

Scientists are uncovering evidence that short periods of fasting, if properly controlled, could achieve a number of health benefits, as well as potentially helping the overweight, as Michael Mosley discovered.

In the last two decades, dozens of scientific papers have been published on the biological origins of homosexuality - another announcement was made last week. It's becoming scientific orthodoxy. But how does it fit with Darwin's theory of evolution?

We are only four months in, but it's already been a dark, dark 2016. It now seems rare for a week to pass without a significant celebrity death being reported - from David Bowie in the second week of January, to actor Alan Rickman a week later, to comedian Victoria Wood and Prince this week.

For generations they have signified femininity and glamour - but a pair of high heels was once an essential accessory for men. Beautiful, provocative, sexy - high heels may be all these things and more, but even their most ardent fans wouldn't claim they were practical.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow's theory of human motivation is 70 years old but continues to have a strong influence on the world of business. What is it, and is it right? There is a commonly reproduced symbol which many believe holds the secret to personal fulfilment and business success.

Mankind's attitude to gold is bizarre. Chemically, it is uninteresting - it barely reacts with any other element. Yet, of all the 118 elements in the periodic table, gold is the one we humans have always tended to choose to use as currency. Why?

After two Harvard economists admitted a faulty spreadsheet calculation caused errors in a study used by numerous politicians to support their austerity policies, writer Colm O'Regan pays tribute to the power of Microsoft Excel. They called it a "coding error".

Alfredo Moser's invention is lighting up the world. In 2002, the Brazilian mechanic had a light-bulb moment and came up with a way of illuminating his house during the day without electricity - using nothing more than plastic bottles filled with water and a tiny bit of bleach.

In the tiny group of gamblers who have become top players at both blackjack and poker, there is only one woman. In her own words, Cat Hulbert describes how she got rich beating male opponents - and the casinos - and explains why in her view women are innately better at poker than men.

Researchers at a US lab have passed a crucial milestone on the way to their ultimate goal of achieving self-sustaining nuclear fusion. Harnessing fusion - the process that powers the Sun - could provide an unlimited and cheap source of energy.

Middle-aged people are being urged to walk faster to help stay healthy, amid concern high levels of inactivity may be harming their health. Officials at Public Health England said the amount of activity people did started to tail off from the age of 40.

China is super-sizing science. From building the biggest experiments the world has ever seen to rolling out the latest medical advances on a massive scale and pushing the boundaries of exploration from the deepest ocean to outer space - China’s scientific ambitions are immense.

A year ago Donald Trump produced the biggest political upset in modern-day America, but were there historical clues that pointed to his unexpected victory? Flying into Los Angeles, a descent that takes you from the desert, over the mountains, to the outer suburbs dotted with swimming pools

David Good's parents come from different countries - hardly unusual in the US where he was raised. But the 25-year-old's family is far from ordinary - while his father is American, his mother is a tribeswoman living in a remote part of the Amazon.

Lonnie Johnson was brought up in Mobile, Alabama in the 1960s, when black children were not expected to go far, but such was his talent for engineering that he worked for Nasa, and helped test the first stealth bomber.

There is a trapdoor on Christ's right shoulder. To mount the steps and slowly, fearfully peer out is to see the world through the eyes of a bird, or even a god. Far below, white blocks of flats and offices cluster among folds of tropical green.

A school dropout from a poor family in southern India has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine they can use to make cheap sanitary pads.

Declassified tapes of President Lyndon Johnson's telephone calls provide a fresh insight into his world. Among the revelations - he planned a dramatic entry into the 1968 Democratic Convention to re-join the presidential race. And he caught Richard Nixon sabotaging the Vietnam peace talks...

Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of AI.

It's not every day that someone writes down an equation that ends up changing the world. But it does happen sometimes, and the world doesn't always change for the better. It has been argued that one formula known as Black-Scholes, along with its descendants, helped to blow up the financial world.

The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history. Experts worry that the row could escalate to affect banking and email systems.

IQ is rising in many parts of the world. What's behind the change and does it really mean people are cleverer than their grandparents? It is not unusual for parents to comment that their children are brainier than they are.

Summer is a magical time of year - the days stretching into one another as the tarmac steams and fruit ripens under a cloudless sky. The warm-weather splendour also gives rise to a unique cultural phenomenon: The Summer Song.

Stem cell researchers are heralding a "major scientific discovery", with the potential to start a new age of personalised medicine. Scientists in Japan showed stem cells can now be made quickly just by dipping blood cells into acid.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is potentially one of the richest countries on earth, but colonialism, slavery and corruption have turned it into one of the poorest, writes historian Dan Snow. The world's bloodiest conflict since World War II is still rumbling on today.

People across the UK will wake up having gained an hour's sleep on Sunday morning, as the clocks go back heralding darker evenings and shorter days. But how much do we know about sleep and its impact on our lives, from our health and mood, to how long we'll live?